Ahead of the November 16 governorship election in Ondo state, some All Progressives Congress (APC) groups, under the auspices of Ondo Patriots, have announced that they have commenced mobilisation in support of the candidate of the Social Democratic Party, Otunba Benson Akingboye.
The Coordinator of the group, Comrade Dele Oyewo, in a petition titled, ‘Protest against Gov. Aiyedatiwa and the party approach’, which was addressed to the National Chairman of the APC, Dr. Abdullahi Ganduje, said the decision was informed by the “questionable” emergence of the state governor, Lucky Aiyedatiwa, as the candidate of the party.
The group noted that the national leadership of the party had taken side with Aiyedatiwa at the “shallow primaries” conducted in April 2024.
Parts of the petition read: “The leadership of the various organising groups within the party structure in the state for the umpteen time hereby re-emphasise that it is going to be almost impossible to work with the party and the governor on Nov. 16th gubernatorial election.
“But we discovered that the party leadership in Abuja is not in any way concerned about the wellbeing of citizens of Ondo state, rather they prefer their own choice of settlement over any form of resulting consequences.
“The voices of people in Ondo State – an appendages of the APC hereby condemn what it described as derailment and gross misconduct against the party ethics in line with the choice of Gov. Aiyedatiwa if truly we are different from PDP and that we do to the latter what we preached before 2015 general elections.
“We, the major APC groups in Ondo state have decided to pick Otunba Benson Akingboye of the Social Democratic Party as our choice.
“However silent mobilisation has been ongoing but we decided this time to inform our party because of the myriad of “I don care attitude” that the APC leadership in Abuja have been displaying to matters like this that concerns the youth of Ondo state long before.
“We cannot continue to die in silence and showcase total loyalty to the destiny wasters in our state. Otunba Benson Akingboye is more or less an APC family whose track and philosophy are similar to that of our dear president Tinubu.
“He had on various platforms recognised His excellency, Bola Ahmed Tinubu as an epitome of modern politics that Nigeria can have. If truly the party leadership is concerned about the great future of our dear party and the good people of Ondo state, it will see this write-up as a clarion call rather than attack on the party.
“We are monitoring all the activities very closely from all quarters. We pray that in a bid to favour gov. Aiyedatiwa, some people will not set Ondo state on Fire.
“Meanwhile, what would eventually remove gov. Aiyedatiwa from office is already cooking even when he is forcefully declared as the winner of the election. We have told our people not to waste their precious votes!”
